Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Bush Poll Limbo: How Low Can He Go?

So what do I find out one night while on vacation when I was actually able to wrestle the television remote from my son, shut down SpongeBob SquarePants and turn on the news? President Bush wants to turn over the security of the biggest ports in the country to the United Arab Emirates.

Wow. I leave for a lousy 12 days and look what happens.

But I think I have it straight now… Take a country that did nothing to America and had no ability to harm us: Invade and occupy them. Take another country that provided two of the 9/11 murderers and that has a history of laundering terrorist funds: Give them a bunch of money and control over security of our major shipping ports.Fortunately, this latest bit of Bush overreaching hasn’t been lost on the rest of America. In a CBS News poll released yesterday, the president checks in with an approval rating that now sits at an all-time low of 34 percent.BobGeiger.com is still investigating reports that the same 34 percent believe Vice President Cheney thought he was firing those fluffy, Nerf bullets when he shot hunting partner Harry Whittington earlier this month.Not surprisingly, other poll results show that the vast majority of Americans oppose Bush’s scheme to outsource the security of U.S. ports to a Dubai-owned company – 70 percent of respondents can see what a stupid idea that is. In addition, 62 percent think things are “going badly” in Iraq, while 51 percent answered “not much” or “none” when asked if they believe Bush cares “...about people like you”. With numbers like this, it's probably about time for a new, contrived terror alert, isn't it?

Political writer Bob Geiger is the award-winning author of the Yellow Dog Blog and BobGeiger.com and specializes in coverage of the U.S. Senate. He won the 2005 Weblog Awards prize for Best New Blog and was a finalist in the Koufax Awards in 2005 for his column "I Know This Little Boy in New Orleans."

He is the coauthor of The Real McCain and his work has appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the New York Journal News. A contributing writer to The Huffington Post and Alternet, Bob also makes appearances to comment on Senate activity on many popular radio programs.